Now They Tell Me!

Okay, so back in December is when I submitted my various materials to these agencies for review.  I am almost 1,000% positive that at the time they preferred, no... required, SNAIL MAIL only.  Now, I go to their websites to check for any updating news and here's what a lot of them say now:

I hesitated about publishing this post, as agency secrets are best when kept, you know, secrets. Nonetheless, I decided that there was enough personal interest here to warrant filling in y'all weary (and wary) authors to a few suggestions. You may be asking yourself, "Should I email my query, or should I snail mail it?" Well, the answer is a resounding Email.  
(http://linnprentisliterary.blogspot.com/)

Now they tell me!  I worked really hard to print out all of those materials... chapters, query letters, synopsis, etc.  Revising them over and over and over and over again driving everyone insane who I had critique them (thanks Mom, Raqui, and Kia).  Now, it turns out I could've just emailed them... great!  No wonder they have not responded.  But still, if I sent a SASE with my submission then they should reply... or at least that would be the idea.

Sigh... oh well, I will have to call them and find out what is the fate of my materials... if they have been reviewed and replied to or if they're lying somewhere at the bottom of a waste basket.  Meanwhile the new job is going well except I'm not allowed to do what I specialize in.

But hey, I still have my buddy (my cat) Sam, my health, my Xbox 360, and Domino's Philly Cheese Steak Pizza... ah, ain't life grand?

Back In The Saddle

Whew... I don't know what has been going around lately but it sure got to me.  I caught a cold at the beginning of last week that totally knocked me out of commission for a few days.  I hadn't been sick in a long time (I even "knocked on wood" whenever I said that statement), but I figured I was about due for a cold.  Luckily for me it was just a cold and not the flu or anything.  I stayed in bed as much as possible watching episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and as many movies as I could get my hands on.

Still no word yet from any of the agencies I submitted my query letter and materials to, but it is to be expected.  I will continue to be patient and hopeful.  I'm still waiting for the revision juice to flow back through me... I feel a bit burned out still especially now after having this cold. 

I still have a few agencies that I want to submit to, but first I wanted to see what the feedback might be from this first group.  I want to see if they all have the same feedback and maybe I just have some general changes to make or if the feedback will vary.

Does anyone know if agencies have more or less of a tendency to lose your materials if you submit them via email versus snail mail?  My concern about email submissions is of course junk mail filters.  I submitted via snail mail to three agencies but I did an email submission to one back in November and haven't heard anything since then.

What's the Difference Between a Query Letter and a Cover Letter?

Sheesh!  Trying to find this information proved to be challenging even for the almighty GOOGLE.  However, with our powers combined we formed, no, not Captain Planet, but a powerful team with the answer to this ever puzzling question.

Here's some information from a website that I think said it best:

What's the difference between a query letter and a cover letter? Author and instructor Alexis O'Neill uses an overhead projector to aptly demonstrate the difference. She pretends to shake her own hand casting a silhouette of a handshake. That's a cover letter. Meaning, "Hi, here's my manuscript." Then she traces a question mark. Meaning, "Hi, would you be interested...?" That's a query letter.

(http://www.scbwisocal.org/kitetales/query.htm)

So to put it simply, a cover letter is very short and concise and literally something you put over the rest of your submitted materials (e.g. query letter, synopsis, sample pages/chapter, etc.).  The cover letter should be in the format of a standard business letter.  This website has a few decent samples:

http://www.fictionforum.net/writers/articles/cover-letter-format-124.html

A query letter is a single page letter, single spaced, with spaces between the three main paragraphs.  The first paragraph should be your hook and generally contains a bit of narrative about your story to entice the reader.  The second paragraph usually runs a bit longer than the first and provides the main plot points of your work.  Some agencies want to know how the plot is resolved by the end of this paragraph so be sure to read each agency's specific guidelines and requirements.  The third paragraph can be a short blurb about yourself or your writing career/credentials, but whatever you write make sure that it ties in with what you're submitting.  For instance, don't talk about being a 40-year-old mother of two unless the book has something to do with that.

There's a lot of information out there.  Some people are confused about the difference and so the information might seem confusing.  One website described a cover letter with the exact specifics of a query letter, which prompted me to investigate further.  My advice is to research research research and then research some more until you feel confident enough with the information you've gathered.


Note:  There's also a difference between submitting materials to an agent versus submitting materials to a publisher so be sure to look for those specifics also.  Again, read the submission guidelines and criteria of the agency you are submitting to carefully and thoroughly.

 Best of luck to you all!

(Recommended reading:  Writer's Market 2010: Novel and Short Story Writers)